


Proverbs and Popular Sayings Relating to the Seasons

by cm (mumblemutter)



Category: Journey into Mystery, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 07:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/pseuds/cm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor and Loki and the illusion of change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proverbs and Popular Sayings Relating to the Seasons

**(one for sorrow)**

 

He stumbles back into his room in a body that's too small, ill-fitting and awkward, and blessed with youth but not grace, not strength. Still, this should be easy enough: he has rattled around in the head of a child for over a year now, and he can imitate his speech patterns and behavior, if nothing much else. Asgardians are fools. They will be none the wiser.

In the end, he cannot keep up the pretense. Not around Thor: his trust is cloying, it annoys. Unearned, a voice tells him. Loki ignores it.

A word here, a recollection of an event he couldn't possibly recall there, and at one point Thor pauses, says somberly, "Loki. I had thought all your memories gone."

"They were," Loki says. "But I remember everything now."

-

He still doesn't understand unconditional love, unconditional devotion. Surely it should come from reciprocation, from a mutual agreement to fulfill someone else's needs or wants and vice versa. Even a dog understands that: do not bite the hand that feeds you, because it feeds you.

Unless you find a better master.

It is a lesson Thor seems incapable of learning. And yet it is that very love that he relied on to bring him back here, almost but not quite where he started.

Even now, with Loki confessing his numerous sins, laying each card out on the table like an increasingly portentous tarot reading, all Thor does is stand silently with his arms crossed and his face blank. Loki tells him almost everything: he should know of the boy's sacrifice, if not his final words.

"Are you not going to say anything?"

"Would there be a point to that? Do you want me to tell you that I will smash your face in until it is a fine red mist? For I have had those thoughts many times before. And yet you are still here."

"But surely this is an unforgivable transgression. Surely you are not so blinded by the floppy hair and the sweet smile. Has nothing of what I have said penetrated through your monumentally thick skull?"

"Aye," Thor says, after the longest pause. "A part of you sacrificed yourself to save us all."

"Not me," Loki practically snarls.

A boy laughs, in the back of his head. It is a child's laughter, delighted and carefree.

-

Thor's chambers remain without protection, which is not entirely unexpected. Who would dare against him? Loki wanders in, waits for Thor to return. When he does, it is only to say, "You," before he starts stripping himself of his armor.

"Difficult day, brother?" He has heard of yet another crisis in Midgard, and decided it is not his business just yet. Soon though, but Loki cannot decide what action to take. It's perilous, this path he's on. Asgardians cling to old impressions like they do traditions: he will be Loki, The One that Damned Them All yet again, and soon enough. Loki tears his gaze away from Thor to look out the window. "Asgard fell and was rebuilt and yet still nothing has changed," he says, almost to himself. "Alliances built today will fall apart tomorrow. Battles fought have little to no meaning, lives lost even less. But heroes remain heroes, and villains -"

"Change takes time," Thor says. "And we have enough to spare."

"And so we imagine there is always time. Always tomorrow."

"What are your intentions."

He turns to Thor, backs him up against the foot of his bed. He is a giant. Loki's neck hurts from looking up. "Only the best," he replies guilelessly. "But I will not take being bullied any longer. Will you still stand for me like you stood for him?"

"I stood for you."

"No." He pushes Thor down onto his bed, and Thor does not resist. This body is small, and mostly useless, but trying to match Thor's physical strength was always futile: now he has youth and beauty on his side. A smile that charms, skin unmarred by rage and bitterness.

He also has magic.

The tiniest of spells immobilizes Thor, and to his credit he doesn't start shouting. Instead all he does is clench his jaw when Loki straddles him, bends down to whisper in his ear, "He dreamt of doing this, so often. With such innocence and reverence. But you knew."

"He was - you were a child," Thor grinds out.

"Oh, hardly that."

He releases Thor, and is thrown against the wall a second later. On the ground, he can't help but laugh as Thor glowers down at him. "Stay away from me," he says.

"Loki. You can call me by my name."

 

**(two for joy)**

 

Thor disappears for months after that. Loki makes plans, plots schemes. He leaves Asgardia standing, mostly. Because he is not fond of repeating himself. Because being only slightly mistrusted is better than how it was before, how it has been for millennia.

Because there is the shadow of a ghost, crawling under his skin.

-

He finds himself shoveling goat dung, of all things. It is soothing in a way that he cannot understand: it is beneath him, after all. And yet shovel he does. Volstagg drops into the stables once, says, "Aye, Loki. You must be missing Thor. He will return, with grand tales to tell, never you worry."

Loki stops, leans against the shovel. "But what if he is - I have heard." He widens his eyes.

"Heard what?" Volstagg was the first to forgive him, the first to trust him yet again, even after Loki's betrayal. He was always the biggest fool of them all. It is almost too easy. "Child, do not hold your tongue. It does not suit you."

Loki spins a vague and only mostly untrue tale of imminent death and danger, Thor alone against the brutal hordes that would see him dead. Volstagg starts to look worried, but only tells him yet again not to be afraid.

They are gone by morning, the warriors three and the Lady Sif.

Loki does nothing but wait.

It is not at all like him.

 

**(three for a girl)**

 

"I have no patience for you, Loki," is the first thing Hela says.

"Yes, but are we not friends! Or we used to be!" Loki puts on his brightest smile.

"Do not take me for a fool. It may have been years past, but I still remember that dreadful boy who was a perpetual thorn in my side. You are not him." She lifts her hand and stares at it. "Strange. Do you ever consider the paradox?"

"I try not to think of it too hard," Loki says huffily. "It will only hurt your brain."

"Enough."

Loki drops all pretense, sidles up to her. "We have worked together well previously."

"Do you wish to conspire against Asgard once again? For I find that I have enough souls in Hel, and I only wish to be left in peace to enjoy my marriage."

"No, I -" Loki stops. He does not. But he is Loki: he cannot remain stagnant. "My only reason for being here is to let know that you have an ally, should you need one."

"I consider myself duly informed. Now leave."

"But you knew all along," he tells her, as Brun leads him away.

"I changed," Hela says. "I keep changing. It is not a state you will ever find yourself in."

 

**(four for a boy)**

 

"Loki, welcome back. I believe you owe me a crown."

"Do I? Why would you assume I had anything to do with it. You know how it usually goes: good triumphs over evil, the heroes win. Everyone goes home happy."

"Except for me."

"Well, you are evil."

Loki perches himself on the arm of Mephisto's throne, legs swinging. Mephisto looks briefly as if he wants to push Loki off, but in the end he only says, "Please. I have to mourn the loss of Satan's throne, snatched from the slavering jaws of victory."

"That, and the Fear Lords must be considering their next move, after you promised them so much and failed so spectacularly," Loki says, tilting his head and leaning closer.

"Why are you truly here, Loki. Surely it is not to flirt ineffectually."

"You flatter yourself." Loki makes a face and steps off the throne. It is dangerous, these games. He is still vulnerable in many ways. "So you've truly lost it, then. Shame."

"Not even a hair's width is left. Fallen to dust as if it never even existed." Mephisto grins broadly. "But then you assume I would tell you of all people the truth."

"I assume nothing." But he has seen enough. It is only his own mind then, poisoning him with doubt.

"Run along, little godling," Mephisto says. "Before I change my mind about allowing you to leave."

"I would think again about even the vaguest of threats," Loki throws over his shoulder as he leaves. "I am not what I was then."

 

**(five for silver)**

 

He is eating an apple in his new chambers when Thor ducks his head into the room. "Have you never heard of knocking," Loki says crossly. Thor looks exhausted, and his body reeks of blood. Loki cannot stand it. He bites into the apple viciously, ignores the juice that runs down his chin.

"Hogun is gravely injured, Volstagg only slightly less so. If you are responsible for this -"

"How could I be responsible for this if I was here all along," Loki asks. "It was you who put yourself into harm's way. And your friends' foolish fealty that sent them trailing after you." He wipes his chin, finally. "Your life affects others, Thor. Perhaps you should consider not running off whenever it suits you."

"Perhaps I should consider your exile."

Loki shrugs: it is a dare, then. "I can hardly stop you." Thor only stalks forward, grabs his wrist as he puts his hand to his mouth for another bite. "Ow," Loki says, as the apple falls to the floor. "That hurt."

"You deserve more than that."

Loki tilts his head up, looks up through his lashes. "Do you want to discipline me? Spank me as if I were a child? Or do you wish to mount me as you used to." Thor blanches. "Ah, both then. That could be arranged. I would not be adverse to it - we used to have such fun, after all."

It was: Loki remembers blinding, infuriating encounters that increased in violence as the years went on.

Thor merely releases him, pushes him away. As he turns to leave Loki calls out, "Or did you only love him for worshipping the ground you walked on?"

Thor pauses. "Him," he says. "You keep insisting I make that distinction."

Loki ends up on the floor after he is gone, chasing after his fallen apple. He rubs it against his tunic but doesn't take another bite. He'd only wanted to change, and yet here he is: repeating old patterns, over and over and more of the same again.

You cannot escape yourself, a voice tells him, and it sounds gleeful and immeasurably smug.

-

He steals into the kitchens, cooks a meal from a beast he'd taken from an enclosure in Broxton, leaving gold on a wooden post as payment to its owner. The resulting pot is not his best work, but it will suffice. He carries it to Volstagg's house, manages to emerge unscathed from Volstagg's unruly brood and his faintly suspicious wife to offer it to Volstagg, still laid up after battling monsters with Thor.

"You should not have gone after him," Loki says reproachfully, as Volstagg makes contented noises and practically coos at the food.

Volstagg stops, a piece of meat halfway to his mouth. "Was Thor displeased? Did he scold you?"

"Only slightly," Loki says, lowering his gaze.

"I will speak to him. It is not your fault if you are concerned over his well being." Loki shrugs, and Volstagg continues, "Thor has always been thick-headed. You will learn this soon enough, if you have not already."

"Why do you forgive me," Loki asks, as Volstagg returns to his food. "Is it that easy, to find that in yourself?" But Volstagg has a giant heart and Loki's in contrast is small, black and hard as stone.

"You meant well, Loki. I understand the reasons now, if not the means you chose. Even the All-Mother agrees. There is no need for guilt."

It is not guilt Loki feels, surely not. Nevertheless, he smiles and nods his head.

 

**(six for gold)**

 

It's easier, now, to deal with the ill-behaved youth of Asgardia. He no longer has to fear for his life, for one. Still, Thor assumes the worst when he offers to babysit, to tell tales to entertain the spawn.

"Revenge against children," Loki scoffs. "That's rather beneath me, don't you think?"

Thor snorts, and but there's amusement in his voice when he says, "I recall your rambling speeches about youth being no excuse for bad manners, so no, I do not think it is beneath you."

"You forget your own impatience, once upon a time."

"But being your brother has taught me infinite amounts of patience."

Loki rolls his eyes. "Just run along, Thor. The little beastlings are safe with me."

-

The children remain unharmed, just as promised. Loki shuts the book and chases them off to bed, and when he glances up Thor is leaning against the open doorway, arms crossed and the tiniest of smiles on his face. "You do this well."

"I do numerous things well," Loki says crossly, setting the book back on its shelf. "Stop looking at me as if I am a pet that performed a trick upon command."

"And how would you prefer I look at you?"

It is the wrong question to ask: they both realize this, Loki sooner than Thor. Loki glides forward, loosening his joints and settling his hands behind his back.

"Could we not just be brothers, Loki?"

"We were never just brothers." Mjolnir is at Thor's feet, handle upright, and Loki plants one and then the other foot on top of it. It is a precarious position; he has to clutch briefly at Thor's clenched arm before he finds a center that allows him to remain balanced. Still he only barely reaches Thor's shoulders. "Tell me you do not prefer me this way."

"What way," Thor says. He is holding himself very still.

Loki leans slightly forward, rises up onto the balls of his feet. "Whole."

"I preferred a brother less consumed by hatred and bitterness."

"Curious, how you lie to yourself." He reaches out his gloved hand, rests it against armor held together by grit and magic. Thor starts, and Loki topples backwards until a strong arm grips him by his tunic, sets him back onto the floor before he falls.

 

**(seven for -)**

 

The Lady Sif no longer warms Thor's bed. Loki has heard she is close to spawning, but the last he saw of her was her striding out of Asgardia, returning to Vanaheim to facilitate the delicate peace treaty between their people.

Odin, predictably, threatens to ruin it all.

Loki sneaks into Thor's room late one evening, after yet another quarrel threatens to leave walls crumbling to dust. Thor is asleep, or close to it, his arm thrown over his eyes. Loki climbs onto the bed, settles down next to him, and Thor uncovers his face with incredible weariness. "Unless you wish for a fist to your jaw, Loki, I would leave me be."

Loki smiles brightly. "Ah, but where is the fun in that." He puts his hand in the middle of Thor's broad chest, marveling at how small his bones are, how visibly delicate even under his gloves. Thor could snap each of them like twigs, with the barest minimum of effort. He suppresses a shiver to lean down, whisper into Thor's ear, "We could destroy the wretched old man together, you and I. You would enjoy that."

Thor grips Loki's wrist. "We will do no such thing. My disagreement with him does not make him any less our father."

"You were always too loyal to family," Loki says, voice sour. "It will be your undoing, in the end." He turns his gaze to Thor's fingers, still clenched tight around his wrist. "Do you not know," he murmurs slowly, "how often we dreamed of this, Thor?"

"We," Thor grits out. "Him. You. Choose one." He sits up, and Loki jerks back abruptly, too startled to respond. He considers shoving Thor away, but stays close instead, lulled by familiar warmth. When Thor speaks again it is merely to say, "Odin will come around. He must."

"And if he does not?"

"Then I shall deal with him. As I always have."

"And me?"

"The same," Thor says, releasing his grip. Loki rubs his sore wrist, making a show of it. "As I always have."

-

This body housed the boy for merely the briefest of moments in time.

Loki's had thousands of years. Memories chasing one another, pain and humiliation, brief moments of victory followed by crushing defeat. His plans, ruined over and over again, mostly by Thor.

Impossible, then, to let go.

He knew this before he died, and he knows this now.

It is different, though.

He is different.

He calls Thor, whispers his name from afar and Thor comes swiftly, urgently. His expression reveals nothing. They are close to the cave where Leah used to reside. Loki stays there now, more often than not. Strange: when he was nothing but a memory, the tattered remnants of a consciousness clinging to the hopes of a young boy, he had desperately wanted his old rooms back. Now a dirt floor is sufficient.

They start to walk, Thor taking smaller steps to accommodate Loki's far shorter legs.

"He was afraid all the time," Loki says, after a while.

"And you are not?"

"I know who I am. There is no need for fear." Thor stays silent, his steps steady beside Loki's. "I made him for you. For everyone."

"Aye, Loki," Thor says. There is not a hint of a surprise in his voice. He stops, and gets onto a knee to face Loki. "But you were a boy who made me laugh, once. My brother." The years have been kinder to Thor than they had been to Loki, and yet here his face is drawn and he looks almost an old man, weary and alone.

"Your memory is as soft as your heart. I always only humored you. Foolish."

"My foolishness brought you back," Thor says, his gaze not leaving Loki's. "I will pay whatever price you choose to inflict." He puts his hand on Loki's head, cups the back of his neck. His voice is soft when he says, "You think I do not understand you, Loki. But I always have."

Loki slaps his arm away, and Thor allows it to fall limply to his side. "I have never needed your pity. Or your love."

"But you have it. My love at least. I have never pitied you."

"What you loved is dead."

"No," Thor says, and his hand rises yet again, to touch Loki's cheek this time. "He is not. What is it you want, Loki."

"I want for nothing, except for less idiocy on the part of those around me." He turns away from Thor's touch, and swallows deeply. "I cannot change."

Thor stands, retrieves Mjolnir from the ground. "There is always tomorrow," he says, and starts to walk yet again.

After a moment, Loki follows.


End file.
